Impossible Foods Opens Mega Production Facility

The vegan bleeding burger company increases production in a clean-energy facility, bringing 40 high-quality jobs to Oakland, CA.

Food-technology company Impossible Foods launched production this week in Oakland, CA at its first large-scale facility. The new 68,000 square-foot facility will use 75 percent less water, generates nearly 87 percent fewer greenhouse gases, and requires approximately 95 percent less land than the production of conventional ground beef. “Our mission to transform the global food system is urgent, and the opportunity is huge,” Impossible Foods CEO Patrick O. Brown said, “so we are embarking on one of the most ambitious scale-ups of any startup in the food industry. Our goal is to make delicious, sustainable, nutritious, and affordable meat for everyone, as soon as possible.” The company’s flagship product, the Impossible Burger, is currently available at 40 locations—including vegan eatery Crossroads Kitchen in Los Angeles, The Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas, and Momofuku Nishi in New York—but Brown hopes the new facility will allow the company to expand to 1,000 restaurants by the end of the year. Impossible Foods also created more than 40 high-quality jobs—a number that will increase to 80 once the facility is fully operational—to the Oakland area. In contrast, the National Employment Law Project named meat processing the country’s most dangerous job in its May 2017 report.